​Where can you afford to cut corners?

Restaurant operators are feeling the pinch from all directions right now – double the unemployment of the general economy, widespread supply shortages and inflationary woes. One recent study found that 64 percent of consumers plan to cut back on their restaurant spending. Amid these challenges, many restaurant brands are trying to reconfigure their physical operations to accommodate the new ways in which consumers are demanding restaurant food. Some formerly full-service restaurants are converting to fast-casual or quick-service models. Others are expanding drive-through lanes, adding windows dedicated to third-party delivery pickup or otherwise making off-premise orders a bigger priority. But all of this costs money – and something has to give. In your operation, what might that be? Amid the strains of the times, there are also opportunities, as well as more companies looking to offer them. In a recent webinar, Morgan Petty of the Interactive Customer Experience Association moderated a discussion with representatives from Steritech and Zaxby’s about how restaurant operators might leverage current market disruptions to improve the brand experience they offer guests. Steritech, for one, is now supporting clients in the midst of remodeling by offering up its specialists to visit client restaurant sites around the country, take photos of every item that an onsite real estate team from the restaurant would normally want to inspect, then upload those photos to an online portal for review by the restaurant. The company says across 500 site visits, it has given restaurant clients back more than 500 hours and reduced their labor cost by 70 percent. Everyone is having to find creative ways to reduce spending, do more with less labor, or otherwise be more efficient with resources right now. What priorities are you managing that can be addressed in modified ways?

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